Last modified: 2014-05-15 07:43:21 UTC
Special:Allmessages has grown huge, with thousands of messages. Searching for a specific interface message is extremely difficult because the canonical structure of these is weak (some functions have messages starting with multiple "roots") and because there is no "tree structure" to aid searching. PROPOSAL: Can we have a modification to the message structure that messages created by (or related to) a component or extension, are created "tagged" with that component, similar to how there is a list of components and extensions in MW's bugzilla itself. The aim would be that interface messages would be able to be listed within groups (related to component or extension) to speed up searching. This would not mean a redesign of the interface system. The suggested method would be that extensions that create or define interface messages also include a group name variable. As interface messages are defined, the current group name is added to their entry. So instead of having to modify the definitions of thousands of entries, it needs the group name defined at one point and the same name is used for all definitions thereafter until amended. Message in code portions that doesn't use this would have a good "failsafe" - their messages would be grouped in a group with a null/empty name, which is the ideal behavior anyway and mirrors the present behavior. The other change would be that Special:Allmessages then sorts messages by group name as an aid to user searching.
An easy way to group them without any major changes would be by the breakdown in messages.inc in the maintenance directory and then group extensions together.
Also ideally a filter (plain text match against any field, ie message name, original text or current text).
(In reply to comment #2) > Also ideally a filter (plain text match against any field, ie message name, > original text or current text). This one was implemented: you can filter by prefix, and this is currently the only way to directly link multiple related system messages on a MediaWiki instance or translatewiki.net. On a different use case than the one this bug is about, it's also possible to use Special:SearchTranslations on Translate extension wikis; with some clicking on the left side, you can restrict the results of a full text search to the extension you're interested in, e.g. on <https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:SearchTranslations&query=edit&group=ext-0-all&grouppath=mediawiki|ext-0-all>: [...] MediaWiki extensions 1 132 Abuse Filter 188 All Flagged Revs messages 28 All Translate messages 32 Article Feedback v5 28 [...]
What about adding some posiibility of search in messages? Usually I know the text of message, but don't know which of thousands messages is it. When I search string (i.e. in translatewiki) I got only tens messages, so I am able to find the correct one.
(In reply to JAn Dudík from comment #4) > What about adding some posiibility of search in messages? https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:SearchTranslations
(In reply to Nemo from comment #5) > (In reply to JAn Dudík from comment #4) > > What about adding some posiibility of search in messages? > > https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Special:SearchTranslations I mean adding to wiki page (top of special:Allmessages). Via translatewiki I found corresponding mediawiki message, but it was already deleted as obsolete...
(In reply to JAn Dudík from comment #6) > I mean adding to wiki page (top of special:Allmessages). Please file a separate bug for this request, it's off topic here; we'll continue discussion there.
